


Cognitive Distortions

by holdyourbreathfornow



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Ideation, TW negative thoughts, it's what our boy deserves, negative thoughts personified, tw body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdyourbreathfornow/pseuds/holdyourbreathfornow
Summary: “No one will ever love you.”  His reflection whispers to him as he smudges his eyeliner, and he sighs at the cruel smile shining through the glass at him.“I know.”  He sighs and puts the makeup away.  “You only tell me every morning.”---When Virgil's thoughts coalesce and attack the others, he's willing to do whatever it takes.





	Cognitive Distortions

He doesn’t feel loved, most days.  Sure, the others act like they love him, but he knows better.

 

“No one will ever love you.”  His reflection whispers to him as he smudges his eyeliner, and he sighs at the cruel smile shining through the glass at him.

 

“I know.”  He sighs and puts the makeup away.  “You only tell me every morning.”

 

“And every morning it’s true.”  The reflection jumps from his mirror to the dark screen of his phone, distorted like a normal reflection would be.  “They only keep you around to make Thomas better, and-”

 

“And I do my job.”  The reflection sours when Virgil interrupts, and it wavers before vanishing.  He stares at his actual reflection before taking a deep breath and emerging into the mindscape.

 

-

 

“Hey, kiddo!”  Patton’s stress-baking in the kitchen when Virgil goes in there for his morning coffee.  His curly hair is plastered to his forehead from the heat of the oven, and his smile seems forced.  Virgil feels the dark part of him lurch happily, but he keeps his ability to give the others anxiety under lock and key mentally, so he isn’t worried about Patton being in danger from Virgil.  He is worried for the father figure, however. 

 

“You okay, Pat?”  Virgil eases himself gently onto a bar stool, and Patton sighs heavily through his nose as he stares at the tray of cookies he’s just pulled out.  

 

“I guess I’m just a little stressed, Virgil.”  Virgil hums in understanding, but before he can say anything, Patton keeps talking.  

 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were somehow causing this!”  Patton laughs bitterly and Virgil straightens in shock. The father figure’s never this rude, and Virgil stifles the urge to wince at the suspicious glare Patton gives him.  “You aren’t, correct?”

 

“N-no, sir.”  Virgil curses his stammer and hides his shaking hands in the over-long sleeves of his hoodie.  “I promise.”

 

“Hmm…”  Patton ponders over Virgil’s promise like a boot debating stomping on an ant.  Finally, as he rolls thin strips of dough into crescent rolls, he nods, satisfied.  “Alright, kiddo, I believe you. Now shoo. I have cinnamon buns to make.”

 

-

 

“Why is everyone in such a bad mood today?”  Virgil asks Roman, as the prince doodles carefully in a sketchbook.  The prince says nothing, only grunts under his breath. Virgil waits a moment before clearing his throat and speaking again.  “It’s like Thomas is stressed, and it’s affecting everyone but me, which-”

 

“Not that I don’t love listening to your drivel,” Roman cuts Virgil off as he swipes eraser shavings from the paper, “but I do have work to do, Virgil.”

 

“Oh, sorry.”  Feeling scorned, Virgil jams his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and clamps his mouth shut.  Roman stares at the paper for a minute more before he sighs, shoulders slumping.

 

“I can’t work with your thundercloud thoughts so loud.”

 

“Fine, I’ll leave.”  Virgil sure as hell can take a hint.  He turns and leaves, hunching his shoulders and scrubbing at his face fiercely with the sleeve of his hoodie.  

 

-

 

Logan’s room is Virgil’s last resort.  With everyone else tense and on edge today, Virgil can only hope that the logical side will have kept a level head.

 

His hopes are dashed as soon as he walks through the door.

 

Logan’s room is in complete disarray, and the logical side himself throws papers and folders wildly over his shoulders, muttering to himself under his breath.

 

“Uhh, Teach?”  When Logan’s head snaps up and his laser focus zeroes on Virgil, the anxious side regrets announcing his presence.  Logan growls at him and turns fully to face him, stalking toward him.

 

“Did you take my planner?”  Logan demands of Virgil, and Virgil emphatically shakes his head.  Logan’s planner keeps Thomas organized, focused. The last time he lost it, Thomas almost forgot Joan’s birthday.  “Well, it’s not in my room, Virgil!” Logan snaps and Virgil cringes back, debating taking his leave, but he knows he has to take the moral high road.

 

“I could help you look?”  He offers hesitantly and Logan quickly shakes his head ‘no’.  

 

“No offense meant, Virgil, but if I cannot find it, then you definitely can’t.  I don’t want you to over-stress yourself, goodness knows what that’d do to Thomas.”  And if that isn’t a whole slew of back-handed comments against Virgil, then he’s going to wear Roman’s costume and sing opera.  

 

He whirls on his feet and runs for his room, breath hiccuping as he feels the tears he was holding back finally break free.

 

-

 

Virgil slams the door to his bedroom closed, pressing his hands tight to his chest, tight enough to leave an angry red mark over his rapid-paced heart.

 

“E-everyone… Hates me.”  Virgil chokes out, and his heart lurches at the thought.  “T-they do, they do. They don’t have to say it, they hate me!”  Virgil’s voice cracks and catches as he sobs, hands flying from his chest to his mouth, not trying to muffle the agonized cries.  “I don’t know what to do!”

 

“Let me take care of it.”  His reflection wavers in Virgil’s blurry vision and it stretches one hand out, grinning with too-sharp teeth and cupping his jaw with skin striped with oozing black.  

 

“You’ll hurt them.”  Virgil sobs and collapses to his knees, pulling them to his chin and burying his face in his jeans.

 

“You mean like they hurt you?”  His reflection snaps and it reaches out, seizing Virgil’s wrist and making him look at it.  “I’m your own thoughts, Virgil, I know what you’re thinking, maybe even before you do.”

 

“Falsehood.”  Virgil growls, thinking of Logan and cringing away from that thought when Logan’s anger towards him flashes brightly in his mind.  “Leave them alone.”

 

“You still care for them?”  His dark thoughts coo quietly, mockingly.  Then they turn and start dissolving. The mirror image of Virgil falls away like leaves, to be replaced by a black, oozy mass of the same size and shape, which flattens itself to the floor and ekes out under Virgil’s door, towards the Common, and the others.  

 

Virgil gapes at the trail of slime the thing’s left behind, before he clamps his jaw shut, wrenches his door open, and heads off to be the hero for once.

 

-

 

_ “You can’t save yourself, you can’t save them, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t…”   _ Virgil looks past the hulking mass of all his fears, his insecurities, his sadness and loneliness.  Its inky black tendrils wrap around the other three. Logan’s head hangs dazedly, but his usual laser gaze is still firmly fixed to Virgil.  Patton’s crying silently. Great, fat tears are rolling down his slightly chubby cheeks, and he’s watching Virgil too. Finally, Roman alternates between glaring at the beast and staring at Virgil, and Virgil can’t read his face, so he turns his attention back to the ooze creature.

 

_ “You’re useless.  Can’t even keep your own toxic thoughts under control.  Pathetic.”  _ A tendril crawls free and inches toward Virgil, but the anxious side pretends not to notice.

 

“You’re my own thoughts, my own self-hatred.”  Virgil looks up, up, up into the void where the creature’s face would be if it were humanoid.  “You’re all the things I tell myself every day. But I’m still here, aren’t I?” Virgil spreads his arms wide and the tendril curls around one ankle loosely.  “So why are you so powerful? What makes you so sure I can’t just snap you away?”

 

_ “Because you’re broken.  Even the others think so.”   _ The slight bump that makes up the creature’s head turns to where a section forms something that looks like a television screen and flickers through the day, through the other sides directing their anger at Virgil.  Virgil doesn’t particularly want to watch, but he feels sticky from the tendril crawling up him, and it keeps him still. He ignores the other three beginning to thrash and watches the screen, biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood as their faces, angry, scolding, and just plain disappointed, flash in and out of focus.

 

“Okay.”  Virgil murmurs and throws his head back, glaring, even as another tendril joins the first, sprawling over his shoulder and the tip dangling near his chest.  “I give. What do you want? You torment me relentlessly, keep me awake at night, tear me down, and for what? I’m anxious, depressed, and touch-starved. I admit it.  I’m not hiding. SO WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” He screams the last sentence and a hole forms in the creature’s face, a malicious, twisted smile.

 

“For you to give up to me, Virgil.  Let go, and I’ll let the others go. Give me your heart.”  The tendrils sink through Virgil’s chest and he chokes on a gasp, hands falling limply to his sides and head lolling forward.  If the tendrils weren’t holding him up, he would fall to his knees. But he doesn’t, and he thinks of how much happier Thomas would be without anxiety.  Without him.

 

The creature makes a gurgling noise that can only be described as triumphant when Virgil nods, and the tendrils jolt in his chest.  He feels them begin to ooze something, and the world becomes muffled around him. He doesn’t feel it when the tendrils peel back the skin of his chest, revealing his heart beating in his rib cage.  A single curl reaches out and wraps around his heart, and it squeezes. Even though he doesn’t feel any pain, his body still spasms and he collapses, suspended only by the oozy vines. In his peripheral, the coils holding the other three release, and the last thing Virgil sees is the others running towards him before his heart is brutally ripped from his chest.

 

-

 

Virgil falls and Patton feels his heart shattering in his chest.  At Virgil’s feet, wiggling inky tendrils curl around his heart, still glowing with bright purple veins of fear, and begin to wrap tightly around it, squeezing it and watching Virgil’s prone form contort in agony.  

 

“You let that go!”  Roman cries, pulling out his sword and slashing at the vines.  The heart drops to the ground and Logan quickly scoops it up and cradles it in his hand, standing next to Roman as the creative side keeps battling the monster.  

 

Behind them, Patton tugs the vines off of Virgil, carefully scrubbing the unconscious side’s skin free of the ooze.  Virgil’s lips are purple from not breathing and Patton lets the tears keep falling. He turns, just as the monster shrieks, and watches as Roman leaps forward, burying his sword into the center of the monster.  The tentacles stick straight out from the middle, like an oily starburst, before it explodes like a balloon, leaving nothing behind but a few black smudges and poor Virgil as proof that it ever existed.

 

Logan walks over with Virgil’s heart held out carefully and Patton smiles as he takes it, even though there are tears still leaking out from behind his glasses.

 

“You should hurry.”  Logan whispers and Patton nods.  Gently, he reaches into Virgil’s chest, the heart starting to glow stronger as the strings of caution and protection that pump through Virgil reconnect with his heart.  He shudders bodily and Patton scoops the anxious side up so that Virgil’s head rests in Patton’s lap. Then he begins to cry in earnest.

 

-

 

When Virgil gasps awake, coughing and spluttering, he’s fairly certain he’s actually dead.  It takes a moment for the world to focus around him, but then it shifts and he can see.

 

He’s lying on the floor of the mindscape, and Patton’s leaning over him, cupping Virgil’s face in his hands and shaking with the force of his sobs.

 

“How could you think…?”  Patton gasps and leans down to press trembling lips to Virgil’s forehead.  He keeps them there and Virgil feels his skin start to become wet from Patton’s tears.  “We love you so, so much, Virgil. I’m so sorry we haven’t told you more often. And we were all so cruel to you today!  Virgil, kiddo, we were all stressed over nothing, I don’t know why we were so rude, I never meant to say any of those things, I promise!”

 

“S’okay.”  Virgil knows that his poisonous thoughts had been following him around the mindscape, had poisoned the thoughts and actions of the others, and he knows that, while it hurt earlier, now he just feels sort of numb, without as many of those thoughts clinging to him like some great, inky cape.  

 

He coughs and Patton kisses his forehead fiercely, gathering Virgil more comfortably into his arms.  Over Patton’s shoulder, Virgil can see Roman and Logan both glaring at a puddle of smoking ooze on the floor, and he raises one shaking hand to his chest.  Under the pads of his fingers, his heart thrums with nerves and worry, which is what it runs on, and he sighs against the soft cloth of Patton’s cardigan. “Love you.”

 

“Oh, kiddo, I love you too.”  And when Virgil looks again, Logan and Roman are standing over the two of them.  Roman falls to his knees and gathers the two up into his arms and Logan joins last, leaning against the huddle gently.

 

“We also love you, Virgil.”  Logan mutters and Virgil smiles softly to himself.  This feels nice.

 

-

 

There are three books on Virgil’s nightstand, left there in the span of a month.  There’s Patton’s sketchbook, Roman’s book of fairy tales from around the world, and Logan’s book of astronomy, complete with star charts that unfold to cover half of Virgil’s bed.

 

There are three blankets covering Virgil as he lays in bed, still recovering.  A thin, fleece one that’s blue, covered in graphs and calculations. There’s a red velvet one with a fleece trim that feels like silk to the touch.  And finally, there’s a quilt, a mosaic of sewn stick figures and suns and things meant to make the person lying under it feel all warm and fuzzy, which Virgil definitely does.  

 

There are three people in Virgil’s room, not counting himself.  Roman sprawls across the foot of the bed, playing Mario Kart and swearing enthusiastically, each one censored with a kitten’s meow by Patton, who lies under the covers with Virgil, one hand curled under his chin and the other splayed open on Virgil’s stomach, half-asleep and cozy.  Logan sits in an armchair he’d brought into the room, holding the other controller and occasionally leaping to his feet in either victory or outrage, depending on the Mario Kart outcome.

 

Virgil is awake, but slightly out of it.  He’d been napping with Patton and his body naturally woke up, which he isn’t used to, so used to blaring alarms or nightmares or insomnia.

 

“You okay?”  Patton mumbles, looking down at him drowsily and Virgil glances around the room before shuffling further under the covers and closing his eyes so he can fall back asleep.

 

“Yeah, Pat.  I’m great.” And he is.  Because he’s loved.

 


End file.
